Fired From His Shed, I Married His Brother and Became His Landlord novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Thirty-Eight Degrees
The pallet room at Pettigrew Cold Storage is kept at thirty-eight degrees, and I took him there on Wednesday in my winter coat.
The foreman had unlocked the side door for me and gone to lunch without being asked.
Jesse followed me through the plastic curtain into the cold with his breath going white in front of him.
Pallets rose on both sides in tall walls, wrapped in clear film and stacked with wooden crates.
PETTIGREW FARMS was stenciled on every one.
A forklift sat dead in the aisle with its forks lowered.
"This is the cold room," I said. "The whole county's fruit goes through here."
"I know what it is," Jesse said.
"You've driven past it every day of your life."
"I never once came in," he said.
I walked down the aisle with my boots ringing on the concrete.
I stopped at the end of a stack and turned around.
"I wanted you to see it," I said.
"I wanted you to see all of it, since you've been waiting a week for me to show you."
He walked the length of the aisle, slowly, with his hand on the crates.
"It's a lot of peaches, Susie," he said.
"It's a lot of everything."
"Why did you bring me here?" he asked.
"Because I want to ask you something," I said. "And I'd rather you be cold."
He looked at me, and a corner of his mouth moved.
"Ask."
I wrapped my arms around myself.
"On the dock, you said yes before I finished asking. Nobody does that. I need to know if it was your father."
"My father?" he said.
"If you did it to hurt him," I said. "To get out of that house."
"If it was a bruise you wanted to hand him, I was just the hand it came in."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Fired From His Shed, I Married His Brother and Became His Landlord are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend